Toccata Classics TOCC0270 Notes

TOCCATA CLASSICS Ján Žilina CIKKER Piano Music Variations on a Slovak Folksong Two Compositions for Youth © Toccata Classics, 2014 ℗ What the Children Told Me Theme with Variations Tatra Brooks Four Fugues Sonatina Lullaby Jordana Palovičová, piano INCLUDES FIRST RECORDINGS JÁN CIKKER Piano Music [1] 1 Lullaby (1942) 2:29 Sonatina, Op. 12, No. 1 (1933) 11:57 [2] 2 I Allegro fresco 3:18 [3] 3 II Andante sostenuto 4:34 [4] 4 III Vivo 4:05 Two Compositions for Youth, Op. 27 (1948) 3:16 [5] 5 I Mama’s Singing 1:34 [6] 6 II he Little Virtuoso 1:42 Piano Variations on a Slovak Folksong (1973) 8:36 [7] 7 Molto moderato, improvvisando – 0:54 [8] 8 Un poco più mosso, ma sempre moderato – 0:33 [9] 9 Con moto, corrente – 0:31 [10]10 Moderato – 1:07 [11]11 Animando. Un poco con moto – 1:08 [12]12 Con moto moderato – 1:09 [13]13 Con moto moderato – 1:11 [14]14 Con moto. Moderato 2:09 Seven Fugues: Nos. 1, 3, 4 and 6 (1932–34) 7:33 [15]15 I Fuga I, a 2 voci. Allegro vivo 1:25 [16]16 III Fuga III, a 3 voci. Largo sostenuto 2:24 [17]17 IV Fuga IV, a 3 voci. Andante sostenuto 1:54 [18]18 VI Fuga VI, a 2 voci. Andante 1:48 heme with Variations, Op. 14, No. 1 (1935) 12:36 [19]19 hema. Rubato quasi parlando – 1:16 [20]20 Var. 1: Più mosso – 2:03 [21]21 Var. 2 – 0:58 [22]22 Var. 3: Allegretto grazioso – 0:28 2 l [23]23 Var. 4: Poco allegro – 0:31 er [24]24 Var. 5: Allegro strepitoso – 0:53 k [25]25 Var. 6: Largo sostenuto – 1:48 [26]26 Var. 7: Allegro gaio – 0:30 r [27]27 Var. 8: Vivo – 0:40 [28]28 Var. 9: Vivo – 0:38 s). [29]29 Var. 10: Molto moderato – 2:01 er [30]30 Var. 11: Presto – 0:49 e [31]31 Var. 12: Rubato quasi parlando 1:18 rad What the Children Told Me: Piano Aquarelles (1962) 15:58 y [32]32 I A fairy tale, please 0:38 , [33]33 II Catch me! 0:20 [34]34 III Why is the snow falling? 1:19 ra [35]35 IV What is a forest? 1:03 sic [36]36 V Dance with me 0:34 t [37]37 VI Why are you crying? 1:06 e a [38]38 VII Where is the brook lowing? 0:34 ies. [39]39 VIII What’s in the lonely castle? 1:13 yzes [40]40 IX A bogeyman’s there 0:44 [41]41 X We saw a roe deer 1:28 l [42]42 XI he train is moving! 0:57 e [43]43 XII Why is the sky blue? 1:50 a, [44]44 XIII I let a butterly go 0:59 nic in [45]45 XIV Must everybody die? 2:19 [46]46 XV We’ve been to the circus 0:54 a er Tatra Brooks: hree Studies for Piano (1954) 10:40 , [47]47 I he Brook and the Breeze 3:39 [48]48 II What the Brook Told Me 4:50 [49]49 III he Brook and the Storm 2:11 TT 74:05 3 JÁN CIKKER: WORKS FOR PIANO by Vladimír Godár Ján Cikker (29 July 1911, Banská Bystrica–21 December 1989, Bratislava) was one of several Slovak composers who acquired a thorough musical education in Prague (the national capital during the 74 years of the existence of Czechoslovakia as a sovereign state): he was following the examples of Mikuláš Schneider-Trnavský,1 Alexander Moyzes2 and Eugen Suchoň.3 From 1930 Cikker studied at the Prague Conservatoire: composition with Jaroslav Křička,4 conducting with Pavel Dědeček,5 organ with Bedřich Wiedermann6 and piano with Růžena Kurzová.7 He continued his compositional studies in the master-class of Vítězslav Novák.8 Ater 1 Schneider-Trnavský (1881–1958) studied with Hans von Koessler in Budapest (1900–1) and Hermann Grädener in Vienna (1901–3) before studying organ, with Josef Klička, and composition, with Karel Stecker, in Prague (1903–5). From 1909 until his death he was choir-master of the Cathedral of St Nicholas in his hometown of Trnava. His output contains much choral music, both sacred and secular, oten inluenced by Slovak folk-music, and some orchestral, chamber and instrumental works with their starting-point in Dvořák. 2 Moyzes (1906–84) was the major Slovak symphonist of the twentieth century, with no fewer than twelve to his credit. A student at the Prague Conservatoire from 1925 to 1930, he studied composition with Otakar Šín and Rudolf Karel, conducting with Otakar Ostrčil and organ with Bedřich Wiedermann and, from 1928, attending Vítězslav Novák’s master-class. From 1929 he taught in Bratislava and also became an important musical administrator. 3 Suchoň (1908–93) is best known as the composer of the irst nationalist Slovak opera, Krútňava (‘he Whirlpool’), irst performed in 1949. For three years (1931–33) he, too, was a student of Novák in Prague. 4 Křička (1882–1969), active also as a choir-master in Prague, is best remembered as a composer for the stage, writing comic and children’s operas, much inluenced by Czech folk-music, of which he produced many arrangements. 5 Dědeček (1885–1958) was a composer as well as an important conductor, teacher and choir-master. His students include Karel Ančerl, Karel Berman, Jarmil Burghauser and Jans Hanus. 6 Bedřich Antonín Wiedermann (1883–1951) was a major Czech organist, touring internationally, to considerable acclaim, before the Second World War. His own organ music follows the late-Romantic tradition of Liszt. 7 Růžena Kurzová (1880–1938), whose students included Rudolf Firkušný, was the wife of another esteemed Czech piano-teacher, Vilém Kurz. heir daughter, Ilona Štěpánová-Kurzová, herself became an important piano pedagogue. 8 A major composer in the generation ater Dvořák, Novák (1870–1949) wrote in a late-Romantic idiom inluenced by Moravian folksong, his highly accomplished orchestral writing oten used to express landscape and other natural phenomena. 4 n 1942 graduating in 1936, he completed his education in Vienna with conducting k classes from Felix Weingartner.9 Aterwards he taught at the Academy of y Music and Drama at Bratislava, and with the foundation of the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Bratislava in 1949 he taught composition 1 t there. He was also an important organiser and conductor. With these o wide-ranging activities Cikker became a pivotal personality in Slovak s musical culture. j He was particularly active as a composer of operas. He wrote his first, Juro Jánošík, between 1950 and 1953, and was to complete eight d more. In particular, his Mister Scrooge (1958–59), based on Dickens’ d A Christmas Carol, and Vzkriesenie (‘Resurrection’; 1959–61), based 47 49 l on Tolstoy’s novel, aroused attention across Europe.10 In his orchestral works Cikker adopted a form of modern dramatic symphonism, frequently marked by a synthesis with national elements, as in the ra Jarná symfónia (‘Spring Symphony’), Op. 15 (1937), and Symfónia 1945 (1974); the symphonic poems Leto (‘Summer’), Op. 19 (1941), Vojak e a matka (‘Soldier and Mother’), Op. 21 (1943), and Ráno (‘Morning’), ; Op. 24 (1945–46); Slovenská suita (‘Slovak Suite’), Op. 22 (1943), 11 l Spomienky (‘Reminiscences’), Op. 25 (1947), Blažení sú mŕtvi (‘Blessed Are the Dead’, subtitled ‘Meditation on a Theme of Heinrich Schütz’; s 1964), Orchestrálne štúdie k činohre (‘Orchestral Studies for a Drama’; 9 Weingartner (1863–1942), a protégé of Liszt, succeeded Mahler at the Hofoper in Vienna in 1908 and conducted the concerts of e the Vienna Philharmonic until 1927. Based in Basel from then on, he was nonetheless head of the Vienna Opera (now the Staatsoper) h in 1935–36). 10 he other authors on whose works Cikker operas are based are the Čapek brothers, Štefan Hoza, Peter Karvaš, Heinrich von 7 8 13 14 g Kleist, Kálmán Mikszáth, Romain Rolland, Shakespeare and Ján Smrek. 11 Cikker stopped using opus numbers in 1950; Op. 31 was the last he ascribed. 5 1965), Hommage à Beethoven (1969) and Variácie na slovenskú ľudovú pieseň (‘Variations on a Slovak Folksong’; 1970). Other works that attracted attention were his cantata Cantus iliorum, Op. 17 (1940), and oratorio Óda na radosť (‘Ode to Joy’; 1982). Cikker irst became interested in music thanks to the piano at home. His widowed mother taught piano – at irst privately and then at the music school at Banská Bystrica – and guided her son to a love of music and piano- playing. Marie Kmoničková, a professor of piano there and herself a graduate of the Prague Conservatoire, also taught him piano, and it was she who prepared him for the entrance exams. he study of piano music by Romantic composers eventually inspired Cikker’s own irst juvenile piece for piano, the four-movement Piano Sonata in C minor, Op. 11, written in 1927, and orchestrated three years later as Cikker’s Symphony in C minor. During his irst years of study with Křička, Cikker wrote a number of fugues as contrapuntal and orchestration exercises. Seven are extant: two two-part fugues 15] 15 –18] 18 , four three-part (one with two themes)[16] 16 –[17] 17 and one four-part composition (with four themes). he manuscript does not deine the instrumental medium and the fugues may be performed with wind or bowed instruments, but for the most part one may play them equally well on a keyboard instrument. hey follow Bachian models, with striking themes, but the development and contrapuntal treatment are not Baroque; rather they follow contemporary approaches, like those of Hindemith and (later) Shostakovich.

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